High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing in NYS

The SEQR Findings Statement for high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) was issued on June 29, 2015. This concluded DEC's comprehensive, seven-year review and officially prohibits HVHF in New York.

In December 2014, the Department of Health completed a Public Health Review of HVHF, which DEC Commissioner Martens had requested. Dr. Zucker recommended that New York should not proceed with HVHF. See the DEC and DOH press release.

Background

DEC received more than 13,000 public comments on its Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SGEIS) issued in September 2009.

In response to issues raised, DEC prepared and released for public review a Revised Draft SGEIS on September 7, 2011. DEC held four additional public hearings around the state and received another 67,000 comments.

Following release of the second draft, DEC also proposed regulations to supplement and reinforce the proposed permit conditions and received 180,000 public comments. In all, DEC received 260,000 public comments on the SGEIS and the regulations. The proposed regulations have lapsed under State law.

In September 2012, Commissioner Martens asked the Commissioner of Health to determine if the mitigation DEC proposed was adequate to protect public health. As the volume of new information on HVHF grew, the scope of the review expanded to broadly consider the public health impacts of HVHF.

2015 Final SGEIS Documents

The individual chapters of the Final SGEIS (April 2015) can be viewed as PDFs (see below). The full 2015 Final SGEIS document is available as two large PDF files: Volume 1 (PDF) (35.8 MB) and Volume 2 (PDF) (8.4 MB). Although they are very large files, they are downloadable and searchable. Please note that new text in the final SGEIS has been underlined to indicate revisions to the 2011 revised draft SGEIS text, in accordance with the requirements of the SEQRA regulations, and vertical lines have been placed in the page margins at those locations.

The individual chapters of the Revised Draft SGEIS (September 2011) can be viewed as PDFs (see below). The full 2011 Revised Draft SGEIS document (PDF) (46 MB) is available as a single PDF file. Although it is a very large file, it is downloadable and searchable.